February Hauls!

[BWprowl]

Generations Brainstorm arrived from Amazon, along with The Flowers of Evil Vol. 3, since paying for something to get free shipping is easily a better choice than paying almost that same amount in shipping. Brainstorm's a mixed bag, but evens out on the positive side for me. He's way simple, even moreso than I was expecting. He's practically an Actionmaster Elite in terms of transformation. But he IS a big, cool, dynamic robot figure, and the Headmaster gimmick is well-implemented (so glad they went in for the flip-down techspecs), and really, the sheer size of the thing (especially for a Voyager) goes a long way, he has presence. Vehicle mode, such as it is, still works well on a lot of levels. I enjoy the sci-fi landing skid, as opposed to wheeled gear like other jets get. Very Star Wars, it's damn wooshable. Arcana fits in the cockpit nicely, and looks good there. Arcana himself is decent, though the super-scrapable blue paint is a misstep. I love his little sculpted smirk though. Overall, a cool toy, definitely more than the sum of its parts, and a fine finale to the 30th Anniversary line.

[andersonh1]

I got the last All-Star Archive that I needed to have the complete set: volume 0. Yes, even the DC Archives can't escape a 0 issue. They started volume 1 with issue 3 of All-Star Comics since that was the first issue to actually feature the JSA, and then when they finished off the series they went back and reprinted the first two issues and called it volume 0.

That's fine with me. I can't imagine what it would cost to buy a single issue of All-Star Comics these days. But now I have all 57 issues re-printed and restored in 12 hardcover volumes. Nice!

[JediTricks]

Zoom 5341 Cable Modem - because fuck you Time Warner, raising the modem rental price from $6 to $8 was the last straw. I could fool myself into thinking I was getting insurance of you replacing it without a word, but based on what I'm paying now I could buy a new one every goddamned year and still have cash left in my pocket to buy Squaretrade warranties. So I bought a squaretrade warranty with ADH.

Sideshow 1/6 deluxe R2-D2 exclusive - A very good but very fragile figure that isn't touching the $150 it cost, but has enough going on to keep it from C+ or below territory. Has lights, a light-up table for a Leia hologram, magnetically-opened panels, a pop-up periscope and life form scanner, Luke's saber that springs out and acts as the magnetic tool, the drink tray and drinks, mixer arm, and 5 tools.


From Jan:

On that topic, I only recently found out that apparently several of the Rebel Pilots from the end of ROTJ were women? I thought that was awesome and now I wonder if any of them ever got toys.

They have, actually. They released Dorovio Bold from ROTJ (blink and you miss her) in X-wing gear in a relatively overproduced Evolutions multipack:
http://www.rebelscum.com/tlcEVORebelPilots1.asp
And they released Sila Kott (the A-wing pilot who gets a few lines) in an overpriced pilot multipack from TRU a few years ago:
http://www.rebelscum.com/TVCEXBattleOverEndor1.asp

I think those female pilots were cut from the film for whatever reason.

For sure Sila Kott there had screentime and lines. There's debate about whether Dorovio Bold made the cut in the space battle or mission briefing. There are at least 3 more females that shot for the film but were cut, including another pilot.

[138 Scourge]

Hey, I ran into that most elusive of creatures, the Kansas City area Combiner Wars deluxe! At least it was exactly the one I wanted, muhfuggin' Drag Strip! Short of it is: I think he cool. Slightly longer of it will maybe show up in the proper thread?

[Shockwave]

I should be getting mine tomorrow. I've been waiting two weeks now with no further word from BBTS regarding my replacement, so I just ordered them from HTS. It was a dollar cheaper per figure and free shipping. If BBTS does actually ship the replacements, then I might have extra copies for sale. But, I should be able to fully merge Superion tomorrow.

[Onslaught Six]

Seems like everyone is starting to find these, even in the trickle-down areas.

So here's something weird. Last week they finally reset the toys at my store. Unfortunately, we have a HUGE surplus of the last wave of AOE (Snarl and Hot Shot, et al), which I partially did my part to alleviate by buying a Snarl sometime last week. Thing is, we've had two of the last Generations just hanging out there, Jhiaxus and Tankor. (The more I look at Jhiaxus and his loneliness, the more I kinda want to pity buy him.) Plus, they have them all mixed in with the huge wealth of movie crap (6 pegs worth!!). I had resigned myself to never finding the Combiner Wars at my home store ever.

Until this morning when I spotted them on the Hero Mashers pegs across the way?? Whatever, the people who run toys at my store don't give a fuck. I thought about trying to get them to price match them to $12.96 (Target's supposed price) but decided I'd just pay whatever. I found two of the entire first wave and figured, fuck it, I'm going to buy them all eventually, I might as well dive in now and regret the lack of money later, and I did just get paid...After my discount and some cash I had leftover it ended up being only $47 on my card, so all in all, not too terrible. I figure, if I only buy a few and never find the others, or skip out on a group entirely, I'll probably regret it later, and the last few years have taught me that I can always make some money back on TFs and they never truly depreciate in value.

I'm opening Alpha Bravo this morning and gonna give a brief-ish review, and that'll determine if I open up the others soonish, or if I'll just wait for a Silverbolt to turn up somewhere (or I buy one online).

Oh, and I bought Sky-Byte sometime last week too. Haven't opened him. Not sure if I want to. Think I just bought him because, again, I'd resigned myself to never finding CW stuff ever.

[BWprowl]

Got a coupla cool things in the mail today:

RiD Tow-Line: Six sold this to me, since it was...a duplicate for him? He bought it to get Skyfire, I think. Whatever, I can't resist a Machine Wars flipchanger mold, so grabbing a cast-off one for cheap was an easy decision. Love his Mystery Machine colors, and I wasn't aware until now that his grille was chrome, neat. Flip-transformation works great too, good use of the hook. I should get this in the Machine Wars versions (and, y'know, all the Machine Wars toys) eventually. Thanks, Six!

GoBots Good Knight: The recent news about the shiny new GoBots toys finally spurned me into action in looking up and buying my singular favorite GoBot: Good Knight! I've loved this guy since I first set eyes on him back when I was paging through all the GoBots on TFU. He's got everything a GoBot should have: A cool distinctive robot mode, a unique alt mode (so classy, he'd get along great with TF2010 Hubcap) and a hilariously awesome pun for a name. He'll probably be sticking around as an erstwhile desk companion for some time. The seller also threw in the card he came packed on, and I find it amusing that it pointedly and exclusively lists evil Renegades as the co-sells on the back. "Check out all these other toys that want to kick your new toy's ass!"

I actually own one other GoBot, Herr Fiend, but Good Knight is the one I've always wanted.

[Onslaught Six]

RiD Tow-Line: Six sold this to me, since it was...a duplicate for him? He bought it to get Skyfire, I think.

Yeah, so, I ended up finding him at a toy show, right? Like seven bucks or something. I figured I would just pick up Skyfire on eBay later on!

And then it turns out that, while some people DO have Tow-Line and Skid-Z for relatively cheap out there, nobody had the damn jets! So I just bought the things carded and said, fuck it.

I ended up doing the same damn thing with the Predastooges, too. I feel like an idiot.

[Shockwave]

Drag Strip, Skydive and Firefly. Reviews in the CW thread soon. Just glad this shipment actually made it, I was starting to wonder. Up next: Motormaster, Huffer and Blackjack are on their way from BBTS.

[andersonh1]

I got Transformers Age of Extinction on Blu-Ray for a Valentine's Day gift. Not that it looks all that different than DVD on my old tv, but it's the thought that counts. Watched half of it so far, and it's pretty good. Looks like the second movie remains the definite low point in the series.